Imagine
a forceful hand shoving you into a cattle cart with hundreds of other
people. You are not given any food or water for two days. This is the
least of your worries, however, for you are on your way to Auschwitz,
the Jewish Death Camp in Poland. There, you'll be exposed to death
and the cruelty of human nature. Solomon Radasky, an Aushwitz
survivor, recounts his experience with death, "I can feel it now .
. . I can even see the other people . . . the other people was crying
the . . . the children was hollering, 'Mama, Daddy help me! Mama,
Daddy help me!' You know, was terrible"(Menszer). Six million
men, women and children were brutally killed in the Holocaust, while
countless others were forced to meet the Cruelty of Man head on. To
give this number perspective, think of the country Lithuania: nine
out of every ten people were killed. The worst aspect of this
scenario is that it still occurs. The importance of studying the
Holocaust is to prevent a similar situation from happening in the
future. Today is the future. Every educated, world citizen is aware
of what occurred in the Holocaust, but few know about current
genocides like; Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or North
Korea?

In
Darfur, the Sudan government, rebels, and the Janiaweed Arabs have
killed more than three million people (Heapon). In Darfur, however,
there is help. There are havens in Dafur such as the Al Salam Camp.
This camp is a haven for mostly women and children that have been
affected by violence. Even here, though, many are not safe. The women
have to leave the premises of the camp to fetch wood on a regular
basis. When the women are out doing this many have been raped
(Dolan). Rapes and killings have become a daily fixture in Darfur.
After visiting Darfur, John Prendergast and Don Cheadle said the
following, "As American citizens increasingly raise their voices
and write their letters about Darfur, the temperature has indeed
risen. But not enough. We need to make it a little warmer, a little
more uncomfortable for those politicians who would look away. Just a
few more degrees. Just a few more thousand letters. It is, frankly,
that simple"(Learn).

In the Democratic Republic of Congo more than three million people
have been killed and the numbers are climbing (Pike). There have been
several peace attempts in the country, but all have failed. There are
more than thirty different tribes in Congo and none of them will step
down. One tribe alone, the Hutus, are responsible for hundreds of
executions, rapes and beatings (Pike).

The current atrocities in North Korea are eerily similar to those of
the Holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of people are held captive in
prison camps because of their heritage. Just like the Holocaust,
"experiments" are carried out on the prisoners of these camps,
which include the use of gas chambers (Eittreim).The camps are
occupied by weeping mothers who are not allowed to comfort their
starving children. People who are deformed as a result of torture,
and the dying, are forced to work. Witnesses have reported seeing
mothers give birth, only to have the child suffocated by a towel
(Eittreim).

The citizens of North Korea not in prison camps are executed
publicly. Fox News recently reported a story on a public execution of
a business owner whose crime was making international calls. He was
executed by a firing squad in front of a stadium of 150,000 citizens.
Four other public executions have taken place in North Korea in
recent months.

The cruelties in North Korea are mirror images of the bloodshed that
occurred in Europe during World War Two. We must use the knowledge
that we have of the Holocaust to prevent it from happening again.
People know about the constant horror that the Jews, gypsies,
homosexuals and the mentally ill faced during the Holocaust. Most
people shudder at the thought of humans doing this to one another.
Nearly all humans wish that the Holocaust could have been prevented.
It is happening again. If the citizens of the world do not do
anything about this injustice we are at fault for whatever may happen
to these innocent citizens.

The survivors and the victims of the Holocaust have taught us to
prevent genocide from happening in the future. Now is the time to
take action. Now is the time to prevent this injustice from
happening again. Now is the time to prevent the future from
repeating the past.